Governor, Yasushi Furukawa of Prefecture, saga, must decide in the coming days, whether you are a support request from Prime Minister Naoto Kan, nuclear winter for regular maintenance shut down to two reactors in a local plants that since the last start. Warnings, that if he decides no and other Governors his follow, idle could each nuclear reactor in Japan in less than a year end it grow here.

This is because Japan's reactors legal obliged to shut down all 13 months for routine maintenance. 35 The nation 54 reactors are now offline, some due to the damage on 11 March earthquake and tsunami, but the most due to maintenance. If some of them are turned back on, the last reactor at Japan by April of next year, will deprive the nation of the source of almost one third of electricity down.

Turning on the reactors hit back, the Central Government requires approval, which granted not for the accident of Fukushima. In the public backlash against nuclear power, which has followed the disaster, the Government of Kan calls for local political leaders, which also emerging restarts.

Mr Furukawa is the first Governor, who is called to make a decision. This was him way on Japan's nuclear future, in a bellwether, because his decision is closely observed by other local leaders that bottlenecks must weigh the same issues of the public fears about security against the threat posed by the current.

"I feel a great responsibility suddenly have placed on me," said Mr Furukawa, 52, in an interview. "Decision does not, start the reactors could turn into a non-nuclear country faster than Germany," scrap refers to that country's decision, nuclear power, 2022.

All eyes are Mr Furukawa, because most appear Governors on the fence to restart reactors. The newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported last month that Governors of 10 prefectures, the home of nuclear facilities are had said in interviews that they not supported restart of its reactors with most say, that they needed more information about security measures. (The Governors not surveyed by two other such prefectures.) On Monday, the Governor of Fukushima went a step further, for an end to his Prefecture economic and energy dependence of nuclear power plants.

Mr Furukawa has publicly agonized decision, which he said he wanted to make until mid-July. On Wednesday, he said that he was pleased by the central government safety statements, indicate that he the reactors could be leaning toward fresh start in his Prefecture.

The situation in saga offers an eloquent look at some of the design of the debate about the nation nuclear future forces. While Japan has seen only a few large street demonstrations, which inspired the Fukushima accident abroad, it has a clear public backlash against nuclear power. The most recent polls show an overwhelming majority – 82 percent last month for Tokyo Shimbun - support in a poll which, get rid of the nation reactors.

The same polls show that most respondents prefer not immediate halt, but a gradual phasing out of nuclear power as alternatives are found. Talks here on the streets of the saga as a nation torn between the dangers of Fukushima accident and the need for a resource-poor nation show in Tokyo also with decision makers, their only serious energy alternative to keep available to imported coal and oil are made.

"There is deep concern over the safety of nuclear power, but there are also deep unease about getting rid of," said Izuru Makihara, political scientist at the Tohoku University in Sendai.

The prospect of the reactors, which goes offline has alarmed, the economy and the country's powerful nuclear lobby, which have issued warnings of the terrible economic consequences if nuclear power is lost. You warn higher price for electricity or even power failures that could harm Japanese earthquake-shaken economy.

In the sign of the looming energy reactor more also shortages here without shutdown, ordered the Government on Friday, factories and other large electricity users in Tokyo to use this summer by 15 percent compared to the previous cut.

"Would If the nuclear reactors are stopped, enormous be the effects on the economy," Mr Kan warned late last month.

Japan's still-tiny anti-nuclear movement has won credibility since the accident Fukushima, although it is also considered part of the left edge. Activists complain, that a deep apathy as a fear of the proscribed prevents that many Japanese measures to take.

"Many people support us out of the shadows, but they have before fear disliked as a radical," Hatsumi Ishimaru, 59, said a housewife who leads a group of anti-nuclear in saga.